Equipment – Sen’Tek Clockwork Crossbow

5 November, 2010

It was the noise I remember, the thack of the crossbow shooting followed by a hollow rattling and then another thack. The crossbow bolts punched right through our shields, Nils and Rood suffered near lethal wounds before we took cover. The Sen’Tek pulled back and fled. They abandoned one of their crossbow that had jammed. Something had gone wrong with the clockwork mechanism and the entire thing was useless.

Sen’Tek Clockwork Crossbow

The Sen’Tek* avoid magic, as the dragons can sense such, turning instead to complex technology and alchemy to provide them with weapons to use against their enemies. One of their favored weapons in the crossbow, as it provides a mechanical advantage to make up their small statue. The clockwork crossbow is one of their attempts to further improve on that basic design.It is a heavy crossbow with a powerful steel bow, two clockwork mechanisms -that must be wound before hand (taking four rounds/24 seconds each)- are built into either side of the stock that immediately recocks the crossbow once it fires. The technology is complex and not entirely reliable, on an attack roll of a natural “1” the recocking mechanism jams after the shot. The bow may still be reloaded manually but it is unbalanced causing a -1 attack penalty. Repairing the jam requires 5 minutes and a DC 21 Disable Device or Craft (Clockwork) check.

Weapons

Cost

Dmg (S)

Dmg (M)

Critical

Range

Weight

Type

Special

Source

Martial Ranged Weapon

Sen’Tek Clockwork Crossbow

1000 gp

1d8

1d10

19-20/x2

120

10 lb.

P

see text above

Here

*The Sen’Tek are the Gnomish analog of the Sea of Stars setting.

Note: Yes, there is no reason to use one of these if you have access the heavy repeating crossbow. Now how those work, I have no idea. But these fit more thematically into the Sea of Stars.